Author
Topic: 5D3 continuous shooting speed (Read 6456 times)

KubaN

I have a kind of problem connected with continuous shooting mode speed in my 5d3.

When the battery level is over 50%, everything seems to be OK, so 6 fps.But the problem starts, when it goes under 50%, so beginning from 49%. Then the shooting speed reduces to 3 fps without a reason.

I should add, that I'm working without battery grip, and the CF card is not the problem, because it's fast and, what is more, the shooting speed would probably reduce also over 50% of battery, if the problem is connected with memory card.

My 5d3 is not the only one that slows down under 50%, my friends 5d3 also behaves the same way. He bought the camera at the same time as I, in the same store, so our SNs are simillar. It's very annoying, especially when shooting sports, so we often change the battery for another one, when it goes under 50%...

This happens with my 5D3 also......not sure exactly at what battery level the frame rate drops but yes it does drop when the battery power is depleted. Not sure if this is how it is supposed to behave or not but I don't every recall my 7D ever dropping under 8 fps even when I only had 10% battery power left. Right now I'm running the 5D3 gripped but I haven't played with the continuous shooting speed at low power with 2 battery packs in place yet. Will let you know if the same behaviour is seen with a grip.

I'd have to check the manual, there might be something in there on continuous shooting rate and battery level.

"When the battery level is low, continuous shooting speed may become slower"

They don't say how low or how slow but when I first got my 5D3 and the battery was fairly empty and tried High-speed continuous it was definitely not 6fps.

Still, I'm quite please with the autofocus and the frame rate when it is actually shooting at 6fps. With my 7D and 8 fps, I always found if conditions weren't perfect, about 50% of the photos would not be critically sharp when viewed at 100% pixel peeping. With the lower frame rate but better autofocus, I still find the 5D3 gives me more keepers.

I think this is happening with my non-Canon battery even when full. I bought it strictly as a backup and have only really used it for the first time last weekend. It was fully charged, but the camera flashes the low-battery indicator.

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KubaN

Ah, I forgot to mention, that we are using an original C battery. I realize, that the shooting speed may decrease when battery level is low, but I thought , that this is going to happen around 9% when low batt sign blinking is enabled... I'd never expect it to happen around 50%!

When realized that this is happening I called to Canon. They really have no idea that this can happen, and a sweet-voiced C girl told me, that if Canon knows about it, they will probably fix it in next firmware.

I dont know how much this applies, but I used to work in a studio that was rented to photographers and we rented gear to those photographers... We were always taught that even when the charger shows 100%, charge it for another 15-30 minutes as the batteries when they read full, really were around 90ish percent... Now with the cameras and how they give you the "exact" percentage, i'm not sure if the battery really is lower than you realize or it's reporting... But anyways, maybe that's a side effect of having a "fast" FPS with only 1 digic...

I generally get through a full day shoot OK on the 2 batteries in the 5D3 grip, even if I'm shooting 2000-3000 frames as I don't tend to chimp much at all. That's what sucks on the juice! But if the FPS issue is real that's a heads-up to get another couple of genuine LP-E6 cells ready for the day when I need that 6FPS rate for the entire day.

With luck this will be picked up in the firmware update due sometime in 2014. March? April? May? December....

I was surprised when I discovered the problem detailed here. It was shocking to experience how much the frame rate drops.

I don't use a grip but I keep an extra battery with me and may buy a second spare. This is a serious issue when covering sports and news. I can get by with the 5D3 and 6 fps for most sports but not if the rate drops even a little bit.